[ohhhmycher]

Hello everyone,

I just joined this forum today and it is great! I am having my first Halloween party this year. There is a twist too it though. It is also my daughter's sweet 16 party. Since her bday falls so close to Halloween, we thought we would combine the two. I am very creative and when I get started I am sure that I will not stop until every inch of the house is covered in something. Several issues that I am dealing with...1. This party will be kids from roughly 14 to 17. I think there are just a couple that are 12 and 13. So I don't want to do the kiddie stuff but at the same time I don't want to scare them silly either. So what is a happy medium on the scare scale for this age range? 2. Money.. I need to work with stuff I have, can make or buy for a very reasonable price. I am a thrift store junkie so I am hoping to find a lot of items there. 3. How can I incorporate the "sweet" 16 and Halloween themes together? 4. As for decorating, when do you start? I am thinking now and just keep adding. The party is on Oct. 23rd. Any ideas will be welcome. I really am starting from scratch here.

Thanks for the help, Caryn

 

[Ween12amEternal]

Hi & welcome to the forum - please feel free to introduce yourself in the Member Introduction - Halloween Forum section.

Wow, that's a doozy. I'd say nothing super gory, but startle/surprise scares might work well. I'd go by whether she's kind of 'girly', in which case she might like the glitter/glam type decor, or if she's more the opposite, you could go for more classic decor. As for food you know this age group would love to eat a meat head, or a jello brain, or any body part/gross out food.

Good luck & have fun with it!

Ween

 

[Drayvan]

With the Twilight movie out and more Vampire TV shows on they seem to be targeting that age group. you could possibly do a Vampire club theme and change the house into a club with flashing lights, black lights and glow sticks etc. good luck and snap some pics when you have the party.

 

[ohhhmycher]

Thanks! I was just sitting here thinking about vampires..lol I guess I am taking one room at a time and starting with the living room for that is the room that they enter through. We had decided that we were going to use that room as a dance floor anyway so all of the furniture with the exception of the piano and the entertainment center will be moved out. I was going to cover those two items with sheets to give the abandoned house look. I am wondering what to do with the walls? If that room is vampire theme, any suggestion on wall decor?

 

[Drayvan]

Club signs like "Club Blood" will work on the walls. creepy cloth $1.00 a package at Dollar store goes a Loooong way. Hang it in the corners and stretch it out gives a good look. for on top of the entertainment center get some old clear glass bottles. (I use old liquir bottles) Fill them with water then get some neon highlight markers. take them apart and drop the spongie center into the bottle. as it sits the water will end up glowing under the blacklight.

 

[ohhhmycher]

TY Drayvan! Do you think the material should be draped all over the walls or that I should use black plastic? The walls are white so I kind of want to change the whole look of the room if possible. I was never into the vampire stuff so I have no clue where to go with this theme, but I really like the idea of a vampire nightclub for where they are dancing.

 

[madammorrible]

I am doing a Vampire theme for my daughter's bday as well. She's 14 but in high school so all her friends are older. We are covering one room with visqueen (cheep and solid black) and used glow in the dark paint and are creating a dance club. The paint was flicked on the visqueen so when lit under black lights it looks like blood splatter. We are naming it either "Club Vein" or "Pulse."

We are spreading the theme throughout many rooms as well. We also have a sitting area in another room that has a piano lounge vibe to it. Lots of candelabras and black and red. Draped fabric over any lights. We got these little square black lacquer tables from IKEA for $7.99 and they work perfectly for cocktail tables. I am renting little black bistro chairs and wrapping some red velvet fabric around them and using brooches and tassles to bind them in the back. I have some major cool labels and stuff that I would be happy to share. Just let me know and I can post for you.

For her cake - I am putting a dagger directly into a red velvet cake with blank fondant on top. It's being set next to a mirror on a stand that I will have "Happy Birthday Samantha" on it - instead of the cake. I am using a silver eye pen to write it to give it a more gothic feel.

We are using a lot of the gothic looking and glitter halloween items for decor. Target is expensive but has got a ton of cool stuff for this theme. I can keep going down the ideas if you want - just don't want to ramble if you want a different vibe. :+)

 

[ohhhmycher]

Thanks! Yes please share the ideas if you don't mind. What is visqueen and where do you get it? Also what are you doing with the furniture that is in the room?

 

[Drayvan]

If you are looking to cover all of the walls in the living room you could use black plastic( that would be real dark) or get the landscaping fabric which has some small holes to allow the white to show through some or if it is within your budget think about using scene setters. here is a link to what they look like. Stone Wall Backdrop I would shop around for the best prices as they get expensive.

 

[madammorrible]

Visqueen is sheets or rolls of black plastic. They sell something similar in the party store for $19.99 for 50 feet which just isn't cost effective for an entire room. They sell this material at Lowes or Home Depot in the garden department for around $10 and it will more than cover the room. This will darken the room a lot which is what we are going for because she wants a glow in the dark room. We are handing out all sorts of glow bracelets and glow sticks, etc. Michaels is the place to go for the bracelets. 15 for $1. If you register on their website you can get access to a 20% entire purchase coupon and then they are down to $.80 which is just madness.

We are moving the furniture out for the dance club into the garage. We have little coffee tables that are basically 2 of the ikea tables combined and we are using those as benches instead to line the walls with. For the benches we are taking rope light as well and putting it around the underneath of the table to help it give off a glow.

Here are some drink/favor labels to use. If they don't come through send me a private message and I can email them to you. They might be too big for the site.

 

[ohhhmycher]

Ty I went out today and got some material and cheese cloth. I think I am still going to cover the walls in the living room making them black, but I went with the weed material instead of the visqueen. I also want to do something with the roof. I am thinking that the creepy cloth may come in handy for that. Then of course I bought cheese cloth which I am sure will add a nice effect. I want to have a silhouette on the big picture window in the living room. Since the room is going to be "vampire nightclub" I want to go with the vampire theme for the silhouette. I am just not sure what to use. Any ideas? I think the nightclub is actually going to end up being more of a parlour area because my daughter has now requested scarey movies to be shown in there. Also looking for ideas for an easy fence for our graveyard.

Thanks

 

[madammorrible]

I sent you a link to my photobucket account. It has all the photos I have been collecting to frame. Hope those help. My only idea for the fence would be pvc pipe with a small skull or something of that nature on the top and then paint the whole thing a dark grey and wash with black for accenting. Not sure how well it work, but it's cheap. I just bought the expensive premade stuff at the party store one year.

For the silhouette you could just do one of blood dripping? Or a bat or even something like gothic crosses to make it look like part of the graveyard.

 

[madammorrible]

Found this too....

eBay.com.sg: 20 Gothic decor fence CAST IRON METAL PIKE SPEAR FINIAL (item 250505376905 end time Oct 05, 2009 06:48:00 SGT)

 

[ohhhmycher]

Thanks I didn't receive the link. Could you please resend.

 

[hippieonastick]

i did this last year for my daughter's 13th birthday. i loved this cake that we made. i can't take credit for the idea...but i can't remember where i saw it either.

 

[B Scary]

Anothe way to cover the wall is to use gossamer but it isn't solid black. It is inexpensive and come in large rolls -- available at Stumps, Andersons Prom, and Shindigz. Gossamer is also a great way to drape a ceiling.

One thing I have done for dance parties is to black out the windows and rent a 400 watt black light that will cover the entire room. Neon paints, white paint, tide detergent all reflect under the light furniture can be cover with white sheets done in RIT -- You don't really notice that the walls aren't black because all you see if the black light effects.

If your interested I can put a picture up from photobucket of our black light party (not halloween themed but it gives a club feel) I also use a lot of blacklight in our Halloween Party.

 

[Turmoil]

what i did in my bathroom for a few years during our halloween parties was to find some old clothes and a cheap wig, get a bag of balloons and blow them up and fill the clothes with the blown up balloons then make the tub half full of fake blood and let the body float then you could write redrum on the bathroom wall (hang plastic wrap so you don't mess up your walls) it is cheap and easy and i got a lot of complaments on the scene and idea during our parties. i also have a fence for my cemetery that was made with scraps of interior trim nailed in wierd angles so it looks old and creepy the two posts that surround the opening are longer and i have skull hung on them. you could also get some halloween string lights to hang around your club room you can probably find strands of solid red lights which would go good with your vampire theme. If you wanted to cast a large shadow through your front window get a spot light and shine it on the object towards your window you can play with the distance to the light to change the shadow. you could even cut the object out of cardboard since it will only be a shadow with out a lot of detail

 

[madammorrible]

Turmoil,

what did you use to write redrum on the mirror?

Thanks!

 

[Turmoil]

i used lipstick, it is kind of nasty to clean up one year i wrote it on the bathroom tiles and the next year on the wall behind the mirror. when i wrote it on the wall i taped up clear plastic wrap and wrote on that so it would be easy clean up

 

[madammorrible]

I was afraid of that. lol But I guess for one day a year I can live. Thanks!